Talk:Everything Is Everything/@comment-24712996-20140405173918
People are saying that young woman was 'taunting' James Franco and his actions can be excused because 'he's a man, what was he meant to do?' Hell no, do these people fail to realise that their thinking buys into a culture which seeks to blame women when they alert others of the fact they are uncomfortable with the fact that men are making sexual advances on them? Nearly every time my friends and I go out we have to deal with unwanted male attention despite the fact we make it clear we are not interested. I remember this time when I was at the arcade and as this guy went past with his friend he touched my leg. They walked away laughing, probably because that’s the closest contact they are ever going to have to a girl because they’re stupid miscreants, while I stood there in shock at how my personal space had been violated. No-one around me even said anything to them. No-one spoke up for me when I couldn't voice my disdain due to shock. No-one cared. Another time a guy sat next to me at the cinema and kept asking for my number. I moved seats and 5 minutes later he left the movie! Once I was on the bus and this guy sat next to me, despite the fact there was plenty of free seats, and started to start up a conversation. There was another time where I was walking with my friend and had lorry drivers leering and shouting at us. Is there no where I can go without getting harassed?! I would never think to do anything like that to a guy so why is it ok for them to do that to me? I had my butt slapped in town a few months ago when I was on the way to lunch and when I turned around I saw a group of young men laughing at their friends action. As if I was only there for their amusement and it was acceptable to touch me without my consent. I was so pissed that I called the guy a bastard and he had the nerve to just laugh in my face and once again no-one spoke up in my defence. Is it any wonder this happens when it has become so accepted in our culture? When you're always making out that girls are overreacting then of course they're going to be hesitant to voice their concerns. A lot of guys don’t understand what it is like to be a woman in a public place. For example, the man that leers at a young girl probably doesn’t realise that what he might see as harmless fun is part of an atmosphere of threat. You wonder will end there or will he follow you home? Then you also have to decide whether to ignore him, which carries the risk that he might become angry and violent, or whether to smile politely and hope he doesn’t take that as encouragement. Harassment informs young women that we should pay a price for being a woman. The effect it has on a young woman’s life is huge, from everyday decisions she has to make to avoid such harassment like pretending to talk on the phone when a guy averts unwanted attention on her to covering up. We shouldn’t have to take these measures in order to feel safe. And this argument that 'boys will be boys' is insulting to men as well because I am sure they're quite capable of keeping tabs on their desires so let us not use that as an excuse to justify behaviour which makes someone else feel violated. I see fit guys in the summer who go around shirtless but I'm not about to go jump on them, bet you wouldn't say 'girls will be girls' then. The fact that I have so many accounts of sexual harrassment makes me angry, the fact I have been told I 'attract trouble' pisses me right off because they are laying the blame with me. Many of us learn that we can stop harassment by dressing conservatively, not travelling alone and not drawing attention to ourselves. This tells us that sexual harassment is our fault. It isn’t. It’s time we changed this thinking.